Get Along!

Did you ever hear of the phrase 'internet bully'? You probably have if you watched certain shows such as Nightline or some national news broadcast. To me, an internet bully is pretty much anybody who bullies you over the internet. Now, in some aspects, internet bullying is much more intense to some individuals than a simple name calling experience and can ruin both their virtual and real lives. I am here today talking about internet bullying because I was just thinking a few seconds ago when trying to focus on what to write a blog entry about and put two and two together and figured: "Aren't the majority of players of Runescape internet bullies?"

Now just think about it. The word 'noob' is an offensive term, used to insult somebody or make somebody feel bad, whether that person getting hurt by the verbal term has better levels or worse levels than the name caller. These people are the ones who roam around Runescape and make fun of other people, calling them 'noobs' or 'no lifers', and are, to me, the internet bullies of Runescape. Their goal is to make themselves feel better by making another person feel bad about themselves, and sometimes they're even encouraging others to break the rules by pushing their victim until they snap and their victim brakes a rule and gets banned, while that internet bully is still out there on the loose. Internet bullies are the guys who try to make you feel like dirt after you got your big goal of 40 ranged by saying, "40 ranged is nothing u n00b! lol" or "thats a low lvl noob". Personally, if you think 40 ranged is such a great goal, then it is. Just because other people have it higher doesn't mean that it can't be great for you. Do not listen to what others think about your levels, but instead enjoy your levels to yourself and have that feeling that 40 ranged was a great accomplishment that you made. You should gain levels for yourself and not to impress somebody else or to compete with somebody you don't even know as a friend. You should do your goals to know that if you put your mind to something that you can complete it, and not just to get up there in the high scores. Yes, the first goal for many is to get all their levels in the high scores, such as my original goals were, but that should be a goal for your own satisfaction. To type your name into the high scores, submit it, and see that long list of levels, all filled in, should make you feel proud of yourself and not saddened. However with the little immature children that we have running around Runescape nowadays, they will make you feel bad about your levels, whether they're higher or lower than theirs. If your range is 40 and theirs is 41, you're a noob to them. If your range is 42 and theirs is 41, then you're a no lifer to them. You can't win.

I do find it realistic, however, that there are a lot of conflicts between between people on Runescape. Just look at the planet Earth that we live on. Why are there wars? Why is there discrimination? Why can't everybody get along and create a beautiful Earth? For some reason or another the real world rubbed off into the virtual world of Runescape, and many of the problems we face in the real world we can see a miniature version of in Runescape. For example, internet bullying. Internet bullying is mostly people from the same area or school that try to destroy your life through instant messages, threats from e-mail, and other sayings such as "Your life is a waste! Why don't you go kill yourself?" and trying to encourage that person to end their life or do something bad. Of course we don't see anything that extreme on Runescape (besides the average saying "Go die" when somebody is mad at another person) but we do see minor versions of it. We do have the average name calling and harassment, though, on Runescape. What about racism and discrimination? Well, we have people who don't like pures, skillers, prayer noobs, tele noobs, members, free players, noobs, new players, etc. We also have the discrimination seen where combat level is involved, [sarcasm] because don't you know that combat level means everything in Runescape? [/sarcasm] Combat level means nothing, and that can also be made similar to skin color, race, gender, etc. It should not matter who you are because we are all human beings, we are all equal, and we are all living things with a soul. It should be the same way in Runescape. No matter what your combat level is, what you're wearing, whether you're a member or not, etc. we should all get along! Why is it so hard for people to change and mature and see that Runescape would be a much better game if we could actually enjoy it? Am I enjoying it? It's hard to say. If it wasn't for my determination to match my goals and for my many great friends who play, the population of Runescape would've turned me away from the game a long, long time ago. And what is Jagex doing about this? Nothing. I tried sending in a message to Jagex that they should make players aware that they're dealing with real, breathing human beings such like themselves and that they should be nice to each other, but I got an automated message returned to me saying that Jagex was on Christmas vacation and could not reply to any messages.

This is one of the reasons why I wish I was a player moderator, so I can have the position where I can fight for my beliefs and try to change people in-game right then and there. I want to change them mentally and spiritually. But until I hold the noble title of player moderator, I have to just sit back and watch this internet bullying take place right in front of me. I tried, once, to yell at somebody for calling another person a noob, but it got me nowhere and he just harassed me then. However, once I saw a player moderator yell at another for the same reason, and that person stopped the name calling, for then anyway. We need better player moderators too! Most mods are stuck up, think they're better than other players because Jagex offered them a position in the game, and some even use their title in an attempt to scam or lure others. Heck, some don't even bother to have their public chat on, and try to be a Zezima and hide from the community. We need moderators who will track down these internet bullies and try to make them stop their bad behaviors. This does not take away time from your enjoyment in the game either. I chop willows in Draynor and all the time I see bullying right at the willows with me. I'll say "Congrats! =D" to the guy who just got 54 woodcutting while a guy with 67 woodcutting will say "noob". I'm the guy with 94 woodcutting here, and nobody deserves to be called a noob by anybody else at the willow trees that I try to enjoy the game at. I pretty much live at those willows while I'm on my goal to obtain 99 woodcutting, and I have a hard time enjoying myself there when I see this fighting and bullying and I can't do anything about it. And nobody else does anything about it too. There was a player moderator the other day chopping willows (I think his name was 2noob2 [what a great name for a mod, eh?]) and this guy was being bullied badly and the mod didn't even respond.

This whole case is like the quote that Miguel Cervantes said:

"Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be." - Cervantes

This simply means that... The people throughout history who tried to do something new and change the world in a positive way were the ones who were titled insane, while the other people in the world who sat back and watched the horrors of the world and accepted them are indeed the insane ones.

Can't you see how the meaning of this quote written during the sixteenth century can be applied to a video game of today's world? This very game being Runescape. The horror in Runescape is the negativity that is swarming the game every single day, and what does 98% of the population of Runescape do? They accept it, and join along on the negativity. When somebody learns the word noob for the first time, they'll start using it probably, right? Like when a young kid hears a curse from their parents a lot -- they may start saying it. But are they punished? No, because it's cute and funny hearing the curse come from a little baby and the laughter from it only encourages the kid to do it more. In the same sense, nobody is telling these name callers that what they're doing is wrong, and guess what? They keep doing it! We need change, or otherwise Jagex is going to lose a customer because they cannot stand the people in the game that they're dealing with! And what does Jagex do? They encourage some of this stuff such as the word noob in some of their member quests! The people who want a change and want to do something about this negativity are probably titled the insane ones, but we should instead be called the revolutionaries and the saviors! We should not go to the official Runescape forum and not rant about how range is the weakest skill in the combat triangle, but instead we should rant about how Jagex is ignoring this awful community that their game has conjured up! Why should we be so concerned over the behavior of people in a video game, eh? This game may not even exist in five or ten years from now. We should be concerned because these younger kids are the new generation of individuals in the world. You can tell 89% of the time (a random number, by the way) how a person is in the real world by their personality expressed on the virtual world. And sadly enough, these people with the bad personality will be running our world someday. Hopefully they'll change and they should change as they age, right? I might have to say wrong to that. The eighth grade class in my high school, in general, are like little devils, with people such as Chase here excluded from that crowd. They are immature brats with no respect whatsoever to their teachers, their work in school, and even school property. And a lot of people in this class play Runescape. I'm going to put two and two together here and figure that these people are some of the negatives roaming around Runescape pestering, name calling, bullying, etc. all the nice and honest players of the game. That's just my generalization and maybe even a stereotype, as Chase himself is a positive, not a negative, but in general, these kids are bad. And they're going to be running our countries someday, working in the civil services, being in the army, working for the government, or being that waiter or waitress that serves you at that nice fancy Italian restaurant down the street. Three words -- We are screwed.

I'm going to leave my rant or discussion or whatever you may want to call it there and move on to the daily blog special. I hope that any Runescape players or even people who do not play Runescape can get something out of what I said. It sure did help me think a lot and get my thoughts out there, and I hope that a lot of people believe my views on the matter. Special thanks to Botanreaper2, however, on helping me think about such a discussion. We were talking about this late last night on Runescape and that chat helped bring up some points that I discussed here, so thank you.

Picture of the Day

Have a good one!